Many trading firms have massive acquisition budgets, spending the largest percentage of their marketing dollars on pay-per-click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO), each of which can cost several thousands of dollars, often with very minimal return.

Even determining the return on such marketing investments is often slightly more than guesswork. Traders, like consumers as a whole, are using an increasing number of marketing touchpoints to determine which online trading broker they want to do business with. So, tracing which of these programs is effective is challenging at best.

The other issue with PPC and SEO programs is that they are designed to cast a wide net to capture the attention of people with any interest in trading. But some might have only a passing interest without any plans to become active, others might become active someday, and only a very small percentage of those responding to PPC or SEO efforts will become the active, profitable traders that you actually desire.

Focusing on acquisition also diverts attention from current traders – who will produce better trader lifetime value. New traders will tend to have higher churn rates. Current traders who feel undervalued – because the company’s focus and resources are devoted to acquiring new traders – will look elsewhere, meaning lost business.

The over-emphasis on acquisition also means missed revenue opportunities — existing traders often have untapped opportunities for repeat purchases and cross-selling.

Focusing on Trader Retention More Cost Effective Than Acquisition

Brokers receive a much better return by focusing their marketing efforts on current traders. Trader retention marketing requires fewer resources, produces a better direct return and can have indirect benefits from referrals that lower the acquisition costs for new traders.

By focusing on building relationships and maintaining engagement, brands can create a stable trader base that drives long-term value.

The math is simple: keeping high-value traders around reduces the pressure (and cost) of constantly chasing new ones. Sustainable growth comes not just from acquiring traders but from ensuring they stay — and engage — over time. No time or resources need to be spent in finding the traders – they are already with you. So, you don’t need to spend thousands on SEO and PPC, though you will still spend some of your marketing budget on new trader acquisition.

The focus on current traders also produces superior returns. According to Bain & Company, for brokers, a 5% increase in trader retention produces more than a 25% increase in profit.

Loyal traders can become brand advocates, using word of mouth and any influence they may have on social media to promote your services, reducing acquisition costs.

How to Retain Your Best Traders

The primary key to trader retention is engagement through a variety of channels.

Retention marketing is more than keeping current traders engaged; it’s a deep dive into understanding the nuances of an existing trader base.

Modern online trading brokers expect personalization, real-time relevance, and seamless cross-channel experiences. So, marketers must ensure that every touchpoint is not only frequent but also meaningful and tailored to the individual. This is where advanced marketing platforms come into play, transforming a blanket “spray and pray” approach into a refined, trader-led strategy.

With tools including purpose-built AI, a Trader Data Platform (CDP) a multichannel marketing hub (MMH) and a modern CRM system, brands can identify what works to retain traders, as well as those traders likely to produce the best trader lifetime value.

The technologies consolidate and manage trader data from multiple sources, within and without the company. They aggregate all trader data, cleanses it, and unify it into a single trader view that can be used for marketing purposes and also accessed by other systems.

Through micro-segmentation and personalized, relevant messaging, brands can create detailed blueprints of trader types, mapping out specific journeys and orchestrating real- time interactions that resonate. This granular understanding reveals which offers, incentives and communication channels truly drive loyalty.

Retention marketing is consistently more efficient and profitable than acquisition. Retaining traders is five times more cost-effective than re-acquiring or acquiring new ones. A 5% increase in trader retention can drive more than a 25% increase in profit for brokers, according to Bain & Company and internal Optimove insights (2025).

These returns stem not only from cost savings but also from increased trader value. Loyal traders tend to have higher transaction frequencies, lower churn risk, and greater potential for upsell or cross-sell.

According to the 2025 Optimove Insights Consumer Marketing Fatigue Report, marketing fatigue has caused significant issues for brands that over-communicate or fail to personalize. It has not only ruined campaigns, but also annoyed traders to the point of pushing them toward competing brands.

This underscores the importance of balancing engagement with timing and personalization. Traders want to interact on their own terms. Oversaturation leads to disengagement and, ultimately, churn. Retention marketing must be timely, relevant, and respectful of individual preferences.

Avoid Marketing Fatigue

However, remember that traders want to engage, but they want to decide the timing and the frequency. They don’t want to be bombarded with marketing messages.

Marketing fatigue has not only ruined campaigns for many brands but has also annoyed traders so much that it has pushed many to competing brands, as discussed in the Marketing Fatigue Report.

So, marketers need to use a platform that delivers the right message to the right trader at the right time with the right frequency.

Experience in AI Matters

Work with a marketing platform with deep experience in natively embedding AI. Today, comprehensive AI-powered suites are the leading edge of empowering marketers to optimize workflows from Insight to Creation and through Orchestration. This is Positionless Marketing.

Positionless Marketing frees marketing teams from the limitations of fixed roles, giving every marketer the power to execute any marketing task instantly and independently. Positionless Marketers have three transformative powers: Data Power to immediately discover trader insights for precise targeting and hyper-personalization — without waiting for engineers.

Creative Power to instantly create channel-ready assets like copy and visuals — without waiting for creatives. And Optimization Power to run campaigns that optimize themselves through automated journeys and testing — without waiting for analysts. By liberating marketing teams from dependencies, Positionless Marketing has been proven to improve campaign efficiency by 88%, allowing marketing teams to create more personalized engagement with existing traders.